George Jonas: Don’t call the Iraq War ‘Bush’s blunder’

Don’t call the Iraq War ‘Bush’s blunder’

How quickly we forget. The second Iraq war, which today is considered Bush’s blunder, was a popular war when it began 10 years ago. Had it been a misjudgment for the “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq on March 19, 2003 — I’ll argue it wasn’t — it wouldn’t have been the misjudgment of U.S. president George W. Bush and his coterie alone. It would have been the collective misjudgment of every person who believed that Saddam Hussein’s regime was a menacing tyranny, known to slaughter its own people and invade its neighbours, destabilizing the region to an extent that was no longer acceptable. It would have been the misjudgment of all who thought that Saddam’s support of international terror, whether through offering safe haven to terrorists such as the infamous Abu Nidal or cash rewards to the families of suicide bombers, was injurious to the interests of the world’s democracies and their regional allies and couldn’t be tolerated. And, of course, it would have been the misjudgment of those who assumed that Saddam’s steadfast refusal over 12 years to co-operate with UN inspectors trying to control weapons of mass destruction, had sinister reasons for doing so.

Needless to say, the biggest misjudgment was Saddam’s own. He didn’t think that failure to comply with UN Resolution 1441 — the 18th resolution, which gave Saddam a “final opportunity” to comply with the previous 17 — would have consequences different from earlier resolutions. After all, for 12 years he experienced no consequences for making the world assume he might be stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Now, he heard the sound of the same old trumpet, except this time Jericho’s walls came tumbling down. Saddam must have been amazed.

But why, a reader might ask, would Saddam want the world to believe he had weapons he wasn’t supposed to have if he didn’t have them? Well, for safety, I suppose: The same reason why certain frogs puff themselves up when confronted. In Saddam’s might-is-right universe, WMDs commanded respect. It was ironic, but not unusual, that his downfall would ultimately be caused by the bluff he thought would ensure his survival.

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The joint American-British-Australian-Polish military campaign to topple Saddam — which most commentators discuss in hindsight as if it had been a self-evident mistake, something any child could have foreseen — was endorsed by clear majorities in 2003 in many Western democracies. Yes, there were voices in opposition, including the Chrétien government’s in Canada. But voices in support were more numerous and much louder across the political spectrum. Britain’s seminal ICM Group/Guardian poll for April 11-23, 2003, for instance, showed 63% of respondents approving the military action that essentially toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in only 21 days.

I will argue (as I have for years) that going to war against Saddam wasn’t an error. The error was to continue fighting the war after winning it. The error was mission creep: Letting an attainable mission called “remove a hostile tyrant” creep into the unattainable zealotry of “let’s build a nation in Mesopotamia.”

Not just any nation was to be built, either, but a Western-style democracy.

Most pundits dismiss the suggestion that after toppling a hostile regime the coalition of the willing should have saddled their mounts and ridden off into the sunset

This was a blunder all right, although hardly Bush’s alone. This doesn’t redeem Bush; as president, the buck stopped at his desk — and to make matters worse for his legacy, it was Bush who campaigned in 2000 for his first term under the slogan of “no nation building”; so as to distinguish his foreign policy from his predecessor Bill Clinton’s unhappy efforts in Somalia. Candidate Bush’s chickens had come home to roost in president Bush’s barn.

The candidate turned out to be wiser than the president. Had Bush listened to himself, he would have had to listen to no one else to avoid the trap of trying to use his nation’s bayonets to build other people’s nations.

But mine is a minority view. Most pundits dismiss the suggestion that after toppling a hostile regime the coalition of the willing should have saddled their mounts and ridden off into the sunset. Ludicrous, some say.

Maybe the United States and its allies had no further military objectives after May 1, 2003, when Bush landed himself aboard an aircraft carrier to announce the end of major combat operations — or latest by Dec. 13, 2003, when an unkempt Saddam was pulled from a hole in the ground — but surely the troops couldn’t just pack up and leave. It would be irresponsible to bomb and run. When a tyrant and his law-and-order apparatus are removed, a complete breakdown of society might follow. There could be chaos, unrest, famine; even a civil war.

True. So?

Does this mean countries can defend their national interest only if they undertake to nurse back to health hostile countries they’ve successfully defended their interests against? And do all countries have this burden, or only Western-style democracies?

In full nation-building mode, dug in for the long haul, the coalition first tried to prevent the savage civil war that followed the Saddam regime’s demolition in Iraq, then tried to deny it. In the end, all it could do was to preside over it. The Anglo-American alliance suffered most of its casualties during the eight years it took to withdraw from a war it won in six weeks in the spring of 2003.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.